


A Concise Guide To Alternian Funerary Procedures

by renquise



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, non-explicit ritual cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kanaya's lusus had taught her, early on, how to prepare a body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Concise Guide To Alternian Funerary Procedures

Kanaya's lusus had taught her, early on, how to prepare a body.

“Those implicated in the regeneration of life are necessarily implicated in death, my dear,” her lusus had said. Kanaya hadn't minded these lessons. They had been interesting, really, and she certainly wasn't squeamish about these things.

With the matriorb gone, they are all she has left of her lusus, and she keeps turning them over in her mind, like pulling beads through her fingers.

There are two kinds of procedures, the first for those who have not reached maturity. The preparation of the body is minimal, in this case--they would be left for their lusus, one last meal before the beast curls up in some dark cave and lets itself slip into sleep. (“And that is why you need more meat on your bones, sweetheart,” her lusus had teased, and Kanaya had laughed and protested that she wouldn’t be able to fit into her dresses.)

Then, the full adult rites.

The body is washed and the blood drained from the body from an incision opposite the lobe-stem until the body is leeched of colour. (All grey in death, hemochrome irrelevant.)

A long cut is made down the chest, the thoracic cavity opened like wings. (Traditionally performed by the kismesis, one last act of grieving violence accorded to their quandrant-mate.)

The blood-pusher, the toxin-filterer, and bile-sac are plucked out. The top of the think-pan detached, and the brain removed. (To the matesprit the blood-pusher, the cradle of pity. To the moirail the toxin-filterer, the font of peace. To the auspistice the brain-matter, the mediator of anger. To the kismesis the bile-sac, the vessel of hate. Depending on the deceased's wishes, the organs may be elaborately prepared or simply consumed raw.)

The crown of the head, with its horns, is placed over the face. (If the horns had been snapped off in a gesture of humiliation, they are placed in the dominant hand of the body.)

Then, the body, empty as a pupa’s first shedding, is consigned to the sun. (She had asked her lusus, once, how her body would be burned away, since she withstood the sun’s rays. Her lusus had patted her shoulder and told her not to worry.)

Kanaya knows all this, knows the way of things and the singular beauty of an abandoned husk left open to the sky.

But there is no sun to carry away the bodies, only the Green Sun so terrible and still so far away.

She doesn’t know if they’ll even have time for the most basic of gestures for all of them. She doesn’t know the rites for sea-dwellers. (Eridan’s death had been a necessary thing, but decency demands something be done.) She doesn’t know what would be right. They are all too young for the full rites, few of them with one quadrant filled, let alone four. By all rights, they should have their lusus to cradle them in its belly and bear them on.

She sees Sollux bleed and bleed and thinks that there won’t be a drop of blood left to drain, that his brain-matter will have burned itself away, that his blood-pusher will have simply burst with the strain, and she feels nauseous. Karkat is hovering over Sollux, not daring to touch him, his face crumpled and messy with tears. She puts her hands on his shoulders and does not say anything. The snarky horseshit-o-meter is long broken. Kanaya already misses the giddy invincibility that had come with the realization that she wasn't quite dead yet, the first few moments of pure instinct and the sweet rush of blood on her tongue.

She looks up to the Sun growing closer and hopes that they will burn beautifully.


End file.
